Saturday, June 29, 2013

A number of years ago, a music group called the Squirrel Nut Zippers released a song called "Hell".* The opening line is "In the afterlife, you'll be headed for the serious strife." It's a campy, strange song -- but, then, the Squirrel Nut Zippers are a pretty off-beat group. On the other hand, it's not often that a popular music group tackles such a significant theological topic.

Hell, or some other bleak post-death manner of existence, is found in most major religious traditions. While some biblical scholars might argue that the notion came late to Judaism, it is certainly present there now in some forms, as it is in the belief structures of Judaism's heirs: Christianity and Islam. And, even though pictures of burning lakes of fire aren't as present in Hinduism or Buddhism, the belief in karma and reincarnation can be seen to serve some of the same theo-sociological control impulses, i.e., "Straighten up and fly right, or . . . you'll spend eternity being punished, or you'll come back in your next life as a sea-slug."

So, why hell, now? First, several weeks ago, I heard an interview with film-maker Kevin Miller. He has put together a documentary called "Hellbound",** in which he asks the question, "Can we abandon hell"? And, in asking that question, he ran into amazing amounts of amazing push-back from all sorts of people. He repeats one young woman's story of telling her grandmother that she no longer believed in hell; her grandmother would rather have heard that she no longer believed in God! And, Miller points out, hell has to be a permanent destination to be effective, not just a punishment way station before a more benign eternity. Indeed, one of the reasons early Christian theologian Origen was declared heretical was that he believed that, at the end, even Satan would be redeemed. So, for many, then, if we take away hell, we take away any motivation to be good.

But a more immediate trigger was an article I ran across in the most recent Oregon Quarterly.*** The article told about the research of U of O psychology professor Azim Shariff (and his co-author, Mijke Rhemtulla) on whether or not a society's belief in heaven or hell has anything to do with their crime rate. And, according to their research, the answer is "yes." In short, countries that, overall, believe in hell as a place of eternal punishment, have lower crime rates than those that do not. The flip-side is that countries that, as a whole, believe more strongly in heaven have higher crime rates. The reasoning for those latter folks seems to be something like "I can go ahead and shoplift; God will forgive me in any case."

Now, certainly, the argument seems logical (and is often used, for example, to argue for the death penalty): severe penalties should lower the likelihood of certain crimes being committed. On the other hand, the underlying theology of hell (and a God who endorses its existence) is something that I, personally, find troubling. Like many of my religious compatriots (of differing stripes), I am much more drawn to a compassionate, loving, forgiving God. A God who condemns souls to an eternity in torment doesn't seem like a very good example of a Divine Parent (most parents DO punish their children, but most don't abandon them for some infraction of household rules).

So, what are we to do? Resign ourselves to a situation where a forgiveness/mercy-based theology might lead to higher crime rates? Or become hell-bound hardliners that would have us lead fear-based lives? I would hope that there are other alternatives, but it would seem that even though just about every religion has some sort of "Golden Rule", its mere existence hasn't kept people from acting out of self-interest, regardless of the consequences.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Coincidence? Synchronicity? Fate? To whatever it may be attributed, I've been faced with multiple exposures over the last few weeks to the issue of "disposability".

Monthly, I head to Metro CareRing to volunteer. As I've noted here before, Metro CareRing is hunger-relief organization, and much of the food that they distribute every day is "grocery salvage" -- in other words, food that was kept out of the waste stream, food that the stores felt they couldn't sell because of blemishes, damaged packaging, etc. The food itself is certainly edible, but the stores doubt their customers would buy it. Translation: "Dispose of it!" Fortunately, organizations such as Elephant Talk and Metro CareRing (and others) are able to get that food to people who need it.

And, several weeks ago, I was in Portland cleaning out my mother's house in preparation for its sale. As is certainly the case with any of us who need to move (especially if there's a time-crunch), a LOT of stuff was destined for the trash bin. It wasn't necessarily broken or otherwise unusable. Some of it may have been out-of-style, or reflected only one person's interests, or was simply "too difficult" to repurpose. In short, it was easier to pitch it.

I returned from Portland and, a few days later, found myself helping with "Move-out". Students moving out of the residence halls are encouraged to donate things that they don't want to take back home, or to their next apartment. We don't have the final tally yet, but my guess is that the residence halls at DU contributed thousands of pounds of stuff to Goodwill. The variety was amazing. There were clothes that had clearly been worn, but outgrown. There were LOTS of plastic storage containers. Thousands of hangers. Unworn clothing with the sales tags still attached. Small refrigerators and other kitchen ware. And shoes, such as those above, that had clearly only been worn once -- and probably for a party. All of it "disposable" -- at least disposable enough that it didn't warrant packing up.

And, then, last week Pope Francis "upped" the "concern level" in an address he gave on World Environment Day:

"If in so many parts of the world there are children who have nothing to eat, that's not news, it seems normal. It cannot be this way! Yet these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy. A person dying is not news, but if the stock markets drop ten points it is a tragedy! Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash . . . *

It's not refrigerators, diapers, razors, shoes, oranges or radishes. It's people that the Pope is accusing us of treating as "disposable". And I would tend to agree with him!

So I've been thinking a LOT about what I consider "disposable", what I think isn't worth keeping. Or what I purchase knowing that I'll use it for a brief moment and then throw it away. Oh, convenience! And certainly the stuff is one thing, but I'm confronted, too, by the people on the corners holding signs as I drive by. People that I "dispose of" after I turn onto the freeway.

Throughout the first creation story in Genesis, we read that, at the end of every day of God's creative activity, the product of that day (whether animals, plants, or heavenly bodies) was "good". Then, after the creation of human beings, theentire creation was pronounced as being: "VERY good!" (Gen 1.31). Everything around us, including us, is very good. We seem to have forgotten that, especially those of us in this affluent culture of abundance.

What do I throw away -- or consider "disposable"? And what does that say about me?

Thanks for riding in!

"On a bike and a prayer" is the blog-site of the Rev. Gary Brower, University Chaplain at the University of Denver. It is meant to be a (relatively) regular site for musings of an inter-religious/ethical/"cycli-cal" nature (with occasional forays into other areas). Please leave any comments you like!